The White Fists Tribe, A Long Term Army Blog

[Zorg_orc_warboss]

Introduction:

Well to start off this will be my second army ever. For the last 5 years I have solidy been very slowly collecting my orcs and goblins, occasionaly dabbling with others but always coming back to our great race. After 5 years of very slow collecting I have ammassed roughly 2500 points. However my army lacks any theme or direction, and scince I am a huge fan of themed armies I figure I better have one.

So here is my mission. I am going to start a new O&G army from scracth. I can playtest it using my current models, but the long term goal is to create an entire army 2000+ points for which I can use.

A short disclaimer. I am not a very good painter or converter, though I try, so don't expect fantastic work like many of the other great blogs here. However I do try my best so hopefully they won't be too bad. Next problem is that I don't have a digital camera, I do however have random access to one which works but isn't good at closeups. So you'll be getting few pictures, and they'll be blurry . The final disclaimer is that this will be updated very sporadicly, as I tend to create armies very slowly.

So with those out of the way I can get on with the blog!

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Fluff/Backtory of the White Fist Tribe:

The White Fists story begins with a mountain. A cluster of mountains in fact. Located in the Northern Empire/Southern Kislev these mountain loom over the small villages around them. Few villagers are brave enough to enter the mountains and fewer return from such a venture. Many call them cursed, others call them just plain evil. The mountains seem to always be surounded by dark clouds and it is rumoured the peak of the tallest mountain is in a constant night. These clouds cover the mountain in a cold icy snow making them even more intolerable. The mountains themselves are covered for a great part in dark pine forests. From the few adventurers to have returned from ventures into these dark mountains it seems the villagers worst nightmares are true. The mountain is covered in some of the darkest monstrosities to have seen the light of day. From huge spiders to mountainous trolls. Some even tell tales of deep cave systems under the mountains which are host to even darker monstrosities. To top it all off the mountain is teeming with greenskins.

Zorg was one of these greenskins. A common orc on the mountain he belonged to one of the myrad of groups that inhabited these mountains, in an eternal war against the other local tribes. However he soon proved himself to be more than some common orc. After many conquests in his tribe he chalanged his warboss to a battle, for the tribes supremacy. The battle raged for hours, as the titans clashed. Over the course of the battle both opponents lost their weapons and the fight turned into a bloodied first fight. But in the end of the day Zorg rose victorious, his fist cracking open the head of his opponent. Yet when he rose his hand in victory it was not covered in blood, instead it was covered white with the snow of the mountain.

The tribe took this as a sign, and as a show of their loyalty they all dyed their own fist/s white using a rare dye extraced from local spiders. Thus the White Fists were born. Zorg's fame soon grew with each battle he won, and soon not only his physical powress but also his almost goblin like cunning was reknowned. To help his growing force Zorg sought to control the beasts of the mountains around them, and soon his army was teeming with the deadliest monstrosities around. It is rumoured Zorg himself even beat a giant in a wrestling match! With these new monsters the White Fists were unbeatable and soon the entire mountain cluster was united under the one tribe. Old rivalries existed, but all held the dyed fist to mark them.

Now Zorg leads his force out of the mountains on raids, looting and pillaging as well as gaining more men to his number. Yet every year he returns to the mountains from which he came, and it is here he seeks continuously to tame the endless amounts of beasts on or under the mountain.

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Developing the Army:

Well there is the fluff for the army. With that in mind I want to try and convey the armies story through the units it uses and the way it looks. To ensure it fits the theme though it is essential I don't include units which would not fit the armies theme.

So to list units that do not fit the theme:

Special Charecters (the army uses its own charecters)
Savage Orcs (we're in the North, not the South)
Black Orcs (the entire army comes from the local mountains, not travelers from far away)
Boars in any context (Boars live on the plains and are ineffective in the mountains)
Chariots (don't work in heavily forested, snowy, mountainous terrain)

So those are the restrictions. However there are a few things to put emphisis on as well:

- monsters of any kind should be fitted into the army as much as possible to fit the theme (however to avoid having a cheesy or over the top army I won't do TOOO much)

- night goblins should be at least as numerous as common goblins

- there should be lots of common orcs to give it the real hoard feeling.


So with all that in mind here is my 2000 point army list. I hope to expand it however to higher point numbers including things such as a Wyvern, more warmachines, and of course more monsters! But for 2000 points I have:

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Orc Warboss [Zorg] - Shagas Screamin Sword, Light Armour, Sheild, Best Bosses At. 203pts

Orc Bigboss - Battle Standard, Morks Spirit Totem, light armour. 147pts

Orc Shaman - lvl 2, Horn of Ugruk. 140pts

Goblin Shaman - lvl 2, Dispel Scroll. 115pts

24 Orcs - sheilds, full command. 174pts

24 Orcs - sheilds, full command. 174pts

24 Orcs - extra choppas, full command. 198pts

20 Night Goblins - musician, fanatic. 89pts

20 Night Goblins - musician, fanatic. 89pts

5 Wolf Riders - spears, musician. 71pts

5 Wolf Riders - spears, musician. 71pts

5 Spider Riders - musician. 71pts

2 Spear Chuckas. 70pts

3 Stone Trolls. 180pts

1 Giant. 205pts

Army Total: 1997pts

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Playing the Army:

The army above is very subject to change depending on how my playtesting goes. So far I have had 3 games with the army of which 2 have been wins. I have made tweaks here and will probably make more as I get more chances to play it.

So far my tactics run along a failry basic line. I take each flank agressivly putting the Giant on one, the orcs with doubles choppas on the other. The middle is held up by the 2 units of sheild orcs, supported by trolls and in most cases spider riders. The night goblins are used differntly in differnt situations. From supporting the middle, the flanks, or whatever other role they can fill. The army has a moderate amount of magic allowing me to roughly go for 2 spells on 3 dice a turn along with the horn. In addition i have a good amount of magic defence. The Spear chuckas are there to wittle down the enemy a bit, or just to act as a cheap distraction.

Hopefully this will prove to be a good stratagy, however I am always open to suggestions of ways to do it better.

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Painting and Converting:

This is what the core of this blog will be about, the creation of the White Fists on the table. My aim is to have a unique army which is truely my own, is well painted, and is something I'll be proud of. In addition I want the armies apearance to explain its own theme. Someone should be able to look at the army and tell me the rough premisis of its backgound without having to sit down and read it. So how do I plan to do this:


Bases:

To fit the armies theme each base will be a mix of dirt/snow. Each base will be covered in GW sand then painted scorched brown (including the base sides). The sand will then be drybrushed graveyard earth. Finaly some GW snow flock will be glued in patches onto the base. This is not a terribly advanced method but it should look good and be within my talent range. In addition I intend to put magnets on the bottom of each base and put them on wooden movement trays with metal underneath.

Iconography:

Whereever possible in the army I will include the iconography of a White Fist (clenched). In addition on banners or larger objects I will have a basic mountain symbol as a background to the fist.

Converting:

I am completly new to greenstuff but I am going to push myself and use it extensibly in the army to get accross the theme. It will be used differntly on each unit/unit type so I'll go into that when each unit comes around. I am not suffieintly skilled enough to do much to my metal models in terms of conversions, but most of my army is plastic so its not a huge deal.

Fun Stuff!

I intend to do alot of fun stuff with this army, hopefully making some nice counters for spells, animosity, ect. In addition I hope to do some mini-dioramas inside units to add some falvour to them.

Painting:

Well my painting skills arn't to flash, but I will be attempting things such as highlighting so we'll see how it turns out (well actualy only I will see because the photos will be too blurry for you to see my bad paiting ).

The armies colour scheme is white to fit with their name and suroudnings. Things meant to have an army colour type scheme will be painted white.

My O&G skin tone tends to be a light one. This is the style I'll be using:

Orcs: Base with Dark Angles, Mid with Snot Green, Highlights with Goblin Green
Goblins: Base with Snot Green, mid with Goblin Green, Highlights with snot green

This should give them a medium/light skin tone (which makes sense if they are living under a dark cloud all the time).

Because my skin tone and theme colour are light I will complement these using darker colours for everything else, using darker metal and darker clothes.

As a final touch all models will have their right fist painted white to fit the theme. (although I'm considering giving a select group of units 2 fists painted white).

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That concludes this opening blog entree. You now have the overview of what I'm going to do and now I need to get on and do it. My first units I'll be starting with are the BFSP goblins which I will be converting. When I get some pics, I'll share them .

[Arfa]

Sounds great, although I would have the Orcs paint their hands white rather than dye them (seems a bit more realistic). It would also help for looks, as you could crudely drybrush the paint on so some skin still shows through. The only reason I say is because it could end up with them looking like theyre wearing dainty white gloves, which we wouldnt want now would we! . Anyway great ideas and Im glad to see its all coming into effect. Cant wait to see the first pics!

Arfa da Grate

[Grishnakh]

Looks very nice indeed! You've already put a lot of time in developing the army, and it looks quite nice. I like the way you came up with the theme,and the reasoning behind not taking boars and chariots; it all makes sense.

Ok, enough said, now I'd like to see some pictures!

[Warlord Ghazak Gazhkull]

Very Intresting stuff you have there Zorg, I see forward to the first pic's from you're revamped orc army. And I agree with arfa about the hands.

Greetz
G

[Zorg_orc_warboss]

Thanks for the replies. The entire work above is all WIP and subject to change. The idea about painting hands does make more sense to me so I'll change it to that.

I have done up my first test night goblin model, so when I get a camera I can show you all.

[Zorg_orc_warboss]

Just a quick update. I played another test match today and through some good luck and some plans that worked well the White Fists have added another victory to their belt. So for now the army is staying as it is.

To further fill you in here is the basic idea of my first project.

My first project is the completion of 2 units of Night Goblins. They are 20 strong each with musicians and the handweapon sheild combo. They also will have 1 fanatic each but I'll be making these later.

To make the NG units I am using the BFSP models. What I'll essentialy be doing to them is:

- converting all the spears to look more like goblin handweapons
- scuplting a furry hood rim for each goblin (greenstuff)
- basic army basing
- All will have black cloaks with the very bottom "layer" painted white

I have a test model done which I'll post up as soon as I get the camera.

Finaly, each unit will have a mini-diorama on one of those longer bases the size of 4 (forget the name). The first unit will have a spider jumping into the unit attacking the gobos (inspired by other great work on this forum ) and the second will have a caged Squig escaping and having its holders desperatly trying to stop it.

So thats whats coming up first.

[Zorg_orc_warboss]

PHOTOS!

Yes thats right, I actualy have photos! Here are the 2 units of Night Goblins I talked about last update.

I have converted all of them to look like they have handweapon sheild. The most common way of doing this was just cutting off the spears shaft and in alot of cases repositioning the new "sword" to look more dramatic. Overall whilst not the best job I think they do fit the role of handweapon sheild goblins.

In addition to this I converted a nice wooly hood out of greenstuff to help better show my snow theme. This is quite litteraly my first attempt at using greenstuff and I think they came out ok, and should look good when painted.

I also went to great lengths to do two mini-dioramas. The spider one esspeicaly took me a long time to position properly.

So here are the photos:


Unit 1:




Unit 2:



Stabbin Gobos:



Saluting Gobos:



Angled Gobos:



Normal Gobos:



More Normal Gobos:



Knifing Gobos:



Command Gobos:



Mini Diorama 1, Front:



Mini Diorama 1, Back:



Mini Diorama 2, Front:



Mini Diorama 2, Angled:



Mini Diorama 2, Top:



Color Scheme tester, Front1:



Color Scheme tester, Front2:



Color Scheme tester, Back:




The Whole Bunch:




And there you go! Basing and painting to come. Any suggestions welcome.

[Borzag]

Dude.... SWEET

Amazing fine detail gs work, and the dioramas are great only real prob i have is that the base of the slayer is still somewhat showing, but nobody should notice from tabletop distance plus it's nice & theme-y.

10/10 from me

Cheers!

Borzag

[Gutta]

If your worried about the bas eon the slayer, how about greenstuffing sandles?

[Arfa]

Actually the easiest way to get around it is to chop off the feet altogether and replace them with feet from spare Wolf Rider legs (you know, the spare 10 you get with a goblin box ). Theyre bare feet and look pretty much just the same.

Nice work Zorg, although Id give the NG a little inking (or watered down paint) on the white areas just to give them a little more definition.

Arfa da Grate

[Zogdar]

Nice, I really dig that Spider vs Gobbo mini-diorama.

[robnixon]

my only problem is the eyes....fairly poorly done. unless its war paint and in that case my apologies

[Zorg_orc_warboss]

Thanks for the comments and critism everyone. The test model was there to help me get a feel for what I liked/didn't. I will make sure to use some black ink on the white areas as suggested and will take more care with the eyes. (on the tests model its not very aparent but as my first use of greenstuff EVER I stuffed up a bit and got some in the face which killed some of its detail, so the others should look better). I will also be working on a way to make the dwarf base fit in.

Thanks for all the suggestions and encouragement, I will be away for the holidays but when I get back the painting can begin!